An independent expert panel has granted Fast-track approvals, with conditions, for Ngāi Tahu Seafood Resources Limited’s Hananui Aquaculture Project off Rakiura/Stewart Island.
The decision, dated 10 August 2026, is the first aquaculture approval under the Fast-track Approvals Act 2024. Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones said it was the 31st project cleared by expert panels under the regime.
At full build-out the farm is projected to produce up to 14,400 tonnes of king salmon a year. Ministers put annual sales at more than $310 million and regional jobs at 415 to 480. The panel’s economic assessment cites about $500 million in annual gross revenue at full scale and the same ongoing employment band.
Jones said full Hananui output would be almost as large as all New Zealand farmed salmon production in 2025–26. That scale would re-weight Southland’s share of national supply and deepen the Bluff processing and port cluster.
The project sits in coastal marine space two to six kilometres off the north-eastern Rakiura coast. The consented layout covers about 1,285 hectares, with four separate marine farms. Farm structures occupy a small share of the wider site.
Development is staged. Stage 1 places one 10-pen block at each of four farm sites, with total feed discharge capped at 15,000 tonnes a year. Stage 2 adds a second block at each site and lifts the feed cap to 25,000 tonnes a year. Progression to Stage 2 depends on monitoring results over at least two full production cycles at Stage 1, under adaptive management thresholds.
The Fast-track application was lodged on 26 November 2025 and deemed complete on 17 December 2025. The panel — Bal Matheson KC, Dr Ngaire Phillips and Stephen Daysh — was appointed in March 2026. Approvals cover Resource Management Act, Wildlife Act and Fisheries Act matters, all subject to detailed conditions on benthic and water-column monitoring, seabirds, marine mammals, biosecurity and management plans.
Seven-year consenting arc
Hananui closes a long consenting history. Ngāi Tahu applied under the RMA in 2019, later withdrew, then sought consent under the COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Act. An expert panel declined that application in August 2023, finding the proposal inconsistent with key directions in the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement and the Southland Regional Coastal Plan despite accepting large cultural, economic and social benefits.
Bishop said the project had taken about seven years to progress. The 2024 Fast-track statute listed Hananui and applied a purpose test that weights regional and national benefits more heavily. Environmental groups had earlier labelled previously declined proposals on the Fast-track list as “zombie projects.” The new decision does not erase biophysical risks; it manages them through staging and adaptive gates.
Environment Southland had publicly expressed disappointment at the 2023 decline. Great South, the Southland regional development agency, supported the Fast-track case on GDP, jobs and export grounds while noting more conservative internal job and revenue estimates on older data.
$3 billion aquaculture pathway
The approval lands inside the Government’s Aquaculture Development Plan 2025–2030. That plan targets $3 billion in annual sector revenue by 2035. Open-ocean farming is tagged with potential of up to about $1.4 billion of that total. Other pathways are lifting value from existing consented space, unlocking Māori commercial aquaculture and settlement areas under the Māori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004, and innovation.
The plan recorded 2023 sector revenue of about $763 million and more than 3,000 jobs. King salmon harvest exceeded 14,500 tonnes in 2023. Jones has previously highlighted double-digit growth in aquaculture exports as the sector builds toward the 2035 goal.
Bishop linked the approval to wider planning reforms intended to make Aquaculture Settlement Areas easier for iwi to use. Ngāi Tahu Seafood is a wholly owned commercial subsidiary within the Ngāi Tahu Holdings group. The panel treated cultural benefits identified by mana whenua as regionally significant alongside the economic case.
